


to love and labour in their prime

by silveryink



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brodinsons, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Catharsis, Conversations, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24056905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryink/pseuds/silveryink
Summary: Two brothers seek each other out on a ship slowly headed to Earth and try to break the cycle of miscommunication haunting their past. Conversations are had, and old wounds start to heal.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Kudos: 89





	to love and labour in their prime

**Author's Note:**

> I've been playing with the conversation for a while in my mind, and decided to finally write it instead of working on my WIP. I don't have plans for continuing this story, but really enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Title from [Jo's poem](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/66167/in-the-garret/) in Little Women (or Good Wives, depending on the edition). I thought it would make sense to choose a line from a piece about sisterly love and transmute it to two brothers.
> 
> Speaking of which, please **don't tag this as slash** , this is purely wholesome _platonic, brotherly_ interaction. Thank you and have a nice day.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

The Statesman entered the night cycle once more. It was difficult to identify the predetermined phases of day and night on the ship, but the remaining citizens of Asgard had associated the latter with the periods when the ship powered down to a hum, only using the energy that was deemed essential and regenerating the rest slowly through the heat coils that had been installed throughout the circuitry.

It was fortunate that Loki had chosen this ship while leaving Sakaar with the freed gladiators – the Grandmaster had likely intended it to be his primary getaway ship and taken all the precautions into consideration, namely the production of fuel and sustenance for those who fled across the galaxies with no idea of safe stops to gather resources. While Asgard wasn’t fleeing anything but debris of their now destroyed home, they still needed enough of both till they reached their destination, which ended up being the last place Loki wanted to see.

Thor had been adamant on leading their people to Midgard, and had somehow convinced Loki to go along with his mission. The trickster _did_ bring them up a few times, his concerns never seemed to stick. Perhaps it _was_ that easy for Thor to brush away his fears – it had appeared so, anyway, to Loki – but he knew enough of bureaucratic affairs to be sure that landing and _staying_ on Midgard would be the opposite of easy.

At least the repairs were completed – the giant hole in the landing bay had been patched up that afternoon by Loki and the other spellcasters, and they were yet to encounter other life forms aside from those already in the Statesman. With nothing else to do, he found himself heading towards the observation deck that ‘night’ as all other times he was free from any work. He was sure that Thor would be there, watching the stars as they floated past, waiting for the next jump point to take them to Earth.

Loki had discovered the view to be excellent, for while he had enjoyed stargazing back on Asgard (stretching out on his balcony or sneaking off to the Bifrost Observatory), he’d never thought he would be able to see them from the sky itself. The idea hadn’t struck while he’d been Thanos’ prisoner (only partly because there were no stars visible from the Void), and while he could see the Nine Realms from the All-Father’s throne, the sight wouldn’t have been the same. As it was, he found his brother looking out from where he was sat against the wall. His eyepatch caught the light as he nodded at Loki in greeting, and the trickster was silently thankful that the metal wasn’t gold. With the weight of the throne on his shoulders, Thor was starting to resemble Odin.

“Evening, brother,” he returned, sliding down opposite Thor, choosing not to mention the pure waves of melancholy rolling off him. Loki’s powers didn’t include empathy, but he didn’t need them to know his brother’s moods. It would be better to let him speak on his own, and hopefully they would settle whatever was troubling him without a fight. He would hate to break their streak of effective communication, after all.

“I’m surprised the Council hasn’t attempted to question my position yet,” Thor said after a long pause.

“Why would they?” Loki asked mildly. “You’re a son of Odin, the _older_ of the two. The rightful king.”

Thor shot him an odd look, but shook his head. “That’s not what I meant, although they didn’t seem to mind you as their ruler either.”

“I ruled under Odin’s guise. They couldn’t protest my rule when all judgement they saw was his.”

Thor, to his surprise, chuckled. “Oh, your illusions are impeccable, but if I could tell that it was you in a few minutes of observing you…”

The rest, _surely others would have noticed_ , went unsaid. Loki hadn’t thought of that among all the political scrounging he’d done ever since he’d taken the throne. Truthfully, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind, not even when he had some moments to spare, or even on Sakaar when he’d been mindlessly nodding along to some dreary tale. He supposed it wasn’t unlikely, though they must truly not have cared if they’d let him be. After all, he _had_ been acting for the good of Asgard.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Loki said, and Thor smirked at the silent acknowledgement, “why in the world would they doubt _you_?”

Thor’s grin faded. “Perhaps because I was absent in my first days of rule, and decided to burn the place down when I finally returned?”

“In all fairness, _I_ did the burning. Do not assume credit for my deeds, brother.”

“I know, you always did like setting things on fire.”

“And you assumed that it would extend to burning down our home planet?” He couldn’t manage to keep the amusement out of his voice, but didn’t exactly mind.

“Of course.”

Loki snorted. “You know, considering the circumstances, neither of those two ‘reasons’ are signs of being a terrible leader. And that is high praise coming from me.”

Thor hummed, but didn’t seem to believe him. “I should have been on Asgard, helping the people fight.”

Loki picked up a stray stone threw it at his brother. It bounced off Thor’s head.

“You _were_ , you dolt, or was that a clone fighting on the Bifrost?” Loki silenced Thor with a glare when he went to protest, and continued, “You killed Hela. She may have been Odin’s daughter, our sister, but she wanted to use her power and _technically_ her birthright to massacre her way across the universe.”

“Our entire armies were razed,” Thor protested.

“If I recall correctly, you didn’t seem to fare too well when you fought her,” Loki said dryly. Thor winced at the reminder. He’d been run through with a blade in the fighting, Loki had discovered later, and dressing the wound after cleaning it had been a dreadful pain (even with Loki’s previous experience of the same). It was a miracle that the wound wasn’t worse, considering how much Thor had delayed the inspection.

“Thor. Even if you _had_ been there, you wouldn’t have been able to do anything than hold her off for a while longer. We couldn’t do it together, what makes you think you could have faced her off alone?”

“Alone, with the entire army?”

“Alone, after she single-handedly wiped out the Einherjar cohorts,” Loki said grimly. “I had to pass the courtyard when I was trying to get to the Vault. It wasn’t a battle, it was slaughter. They didn’t stand a chance against her.”

Thor looked away from him, and Loki thought he could have screamed. He settled for a sigh. “None of this is your fault, not even summoning Surtur. Besides, as tragic as it is, you must remember that they knew that the possibility of losing their life on the job was high. They knew what they signed up for, Thor.”

“This might have been delayed if you hadn’t banished our Father to Earth,” Thor grumbled, but since there was no real heat in his words, Loki knew that Thor simply didn’t want to admit that Loki was right.

“Perhaps. Father could have chosen to tell us about Hela. He did know how terribly secrets returned to bite him in the-”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.” Thor tossed the object back to Loki, who batted it away deftly. No doubt the stone had been shed by Korg, the gladiator who’d escaped with them to Asgard. After days of working with them, Loki had to admit that the Kronan’s work ethic was impressive, when he wasn’t forced into any of the thankless tasks as he had been on Sakaar. He flipped the stone aside.

“He really did insist on keeping those secrets, didn’t he?” Thor asked ruefully.

Loki took a moment to snap back to the present, once he fully registered what Thor had said, nodded in assent. He also understood what his brother _wasn’t_ saying, so: “I had four years to reconcile with them. Father was well-intentioned, I believe, but sorely mistaken in his expectation of people’s reactions to being lied to throughout their lives.”

“You would know about that,” Thor said, but Loki ignored him.

“He could have at least told me I was adopted, staggered the blows, so to speak.” A pause. “It was harder for me to accept that I was biologically _jotun_ , actually. I got over the ‘you’re adopted’ bit faster.”

“Oh?” Thor was smiling at him rather oddly.

“Indeed. I tried to make amends with them, diplomatically – I set up contact with the new king of Jotunheim and agreed to give up the Casket in return for peace. The Council didn’t like it, but they understood that it was necessary.”

“What if they decided to use it as a weapon again?”

Loki shook his head. “Their highest ranking sorcerer and I _personally_ worked an enchantment to ensure that it can’t be removed or used by anyone, not even the king. It rests at the heart of the realm now, feeding it with its energies.”

“As it was meant to.”

You should see it now, actually. Father rarely spoke of it, but I did my research in the last four years. What we saw six years ago was a dying planet; it’s actually rather fasci– why are you making that face?”

“You called Odin ‘Father’,” Thor said.

Loki blinked. He must have done so subconsciously, because he hadn’t been lying about coming to terms with the secrets of his past. He’d spoken to Heimdall at length and sought out Asgard’s histories about Jotunheim to understand what exactly it meant for him, and somewhere among all the research, he’d started to think of himself as an Odinson once more.

“He _did_ raise me,” he said slowly. “Mother did most of it, though.”

Thor snorted, but didn’t deny it. Odin had often chosen his royal duties over spending time with his sons, and while they had been bitter and competitive over who got his attention more, they’d accepted the effect of those actions and gradually left them behind. Over the shifts they’d taken on the Statesman, the brothers tried to find some time to sit and talk to each other, perhaps break the cycle of miscommunication in the family.

“I visited him on Midgard,” Loki said suddenly. “Not as much as I might have liked, in hindsight, but it was far from abandonment.”

Thor hummed. “I’m glad.”

The two of them sat in silence as they flew past a distant nebula. Then, Thor stirred and began to fidget, which Loki recognised was a sign of extreme nervousness from their youth.

“This may come off wrong,” Thor began hesitantly, “but I wanted to know why you did… what you did, with Laufey and our Father.”

“Ah.” Loki wasn’t surprised that Thor had brought it up now. He’d expected the two of them to talk about it before this, but he was planning on replying honestly regardless of _when_ the conversation happened. It was something, he knew, that they both needed to hear, if only so that they could move past that bitter period.

“Honestly, I’m still not sure what I thought the plan would achieve,” he admitted. “I _had_ done some cursory research on Jotunheim’s practices that morning, and when I visited Laufey earlier that day, I found out that Odin’s – Father’s tale wasn’t all of it. Did he tell you…?”

Thor shook his head. “He said you were Laufey’s biological child, and that he hadn’t told anyone about it because of the stigma against the Jotnar.”

“A stigma he didn’t bother quelling.” Loki sighed, but recounted to Thor exactly what he’d learned about his past – that Odin had found him in a temple after the long and bloody war, his natural shapeshifting abilities that left him in this form, the discovery of his parentage and what had happened at the meeting. Thor appeared to be _very_ interested when Loki mentioned Laufey’s reveal that he’d been born out of an affair.

“Norns,” Thor breathed, looking absolutely horrified when he put it together. “Was that why they...”

Loki nodded. “Even Midgard and Asgard followed the practice of abandoning illegitimate children, though the tradition is long since obsolete.”

“Still, it doesn’t make it less terrible.”

Loki exhaled shakily, troubled by the fact that even after his acceptance of his heritage and birth he could be affected so. “It doesn’t,” he agreed softly.

“I thought you might have gone to meet your biological family,” Thor said after a tense silence. “Though obviously that was before I found out…”

At this, Loki scoffed. “Why? They haven’t done a damn thing for me save abandon me to a cold and miserable death. If I _do_ have other biological relatives, they either stood by and watched as I was left to die or didn’t know of my existence. Should it be the latter, I’d rather not seek them out and sow discord and confusion into all our hearts; if it is the former, I’m better off not knowing them at all.

“Odin may have had his faults while raising me – while raising _us_ , but he never cast us aside when it was convenient to do so. I’ll admit I was bitter, but I simply didn’t want to admit what I knew to be the truth – that I was the son of Odin and Frigga, in the end, and your brother. I know who my family is. I don’t need another,” he concluded, feeling rather embarrassed after his speech.

The king of Asgard grinned impishly. “So when you say you know your family, does it-”

“ _Yes_ , I also mean the Revengers.” He raised a brow at his brother, who was still beaming like he planned to replace the Midgardian sun. “Has anyone told you that it’s a stupid name?”

“Yes, brother, several times. Mostly by you, if I remember correctly.”

The two of them exchanged a glance, one with a thousand years of brotherhood between them, and burst into laughter.

Finally, wiping tears away from his eyes, Thor reached out to clap a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “I’m glad you found your way home, brother, truly.”

 _Damn you and your sentiment,_ Loki thought, but smiled and replied, rather simply, “Love you too, Thor.”

**Author's Note:**

> The bit about Loki's birth being illegitimate is from a cut scene I remember watching that I can't find anymore where Laufey calls him something akin to a bastard child (if anyone has a link please share it in the comments because it's driving me crazy). It's also a headcanon of mine because it tallies with historical incidences of child abandonment. 
> 
> Here's the [section on the historical incidences](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abandonment#History) in the Wiki article, in case anyone would like to know more on the subject (cause I'm a nerd who researches her headcanons).
> 
> Mostly, I just wanted to write a story about Loki's character growth between Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok, as well as something with the two of them working through their issues together.


End file.
